Tag: pandemic

Pence says European travel ban will extend to U.K. and Ireland

Axios logoVice President Mike Pence announced Saturday that all travel from Ireland and the United Kingdom to the U.S. will be suspended, effective midnight EST on Monday. He said Americans and legal residents abroad in those countries can return home.

Why it matters: The administration initially left the two off its restricted travel list, but that case has been weakened due to an uptick in cases in the UK.

Details: The travel restrictions do not apply to cargo or economic shipping, officials with the coronavirus task force said. Continue reading.

There’s plenty of toilet paper in the US – so why are people hoarding it?

The other day I went into Costco to buy some toilet paper. It came as a small shock when I couldn’t find a single roll.

The new coronavirus is inspiring panic buying of a variety of household products such as toilet paper in cities across the U.S. and world.

While it makes sense to me that masks and hand sanitizer would be in short supply because of the outbreak, I wondered why people would be hoarding toilet paper – a product that is widely produced and doesn’t help protect from a respiratory virus like COVID-19. Toilet paper is becoming so valuable there’s even been at least one armed robbery. Continue reading.

US reaches moment of truth on coronavirus

The Hill logoPresident Trump concluded his address to the nation at 9:12 p.m. on Wednesday, seeking to reassure a nervous public that the government was doing everything it could to stave off the worst effects of the coronavirus. Two days later, he declared a national emergency.

The past week was marked by a whirlwind of cancellations, restrictions on travel and public gatherings, and increasingly grim warnings from public health officials.

Five minutes after Trump’s Wednesday speech, news broke that actor Tom Hanks had the virus, the most high-profile American to contract it to date. Twenty minutes after that, the NBA announced its season had been suspended after first one and then multiple players tested positive. Continue reading.

Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to “flatten the curve”

Washington Post logoAfter the first case of covid-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus, was announced in the United States, reports of further infections trickled in slowly. Two months later, that trickle has turned into a steady current.

This so-called exponential curve has experts worried. If the number of cases were to continue to double every three days, there would be about a hundred million cases in the United States by May.

That is math, not prophecy. The spread can be slowed, public health professionals say, if people practice “social distancing” by avoiding public spaces and generally limiting their movement. Continue reading.

I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it.

Washington Post logoThe federal government is moving too slowly, due to a lack of leadership.

When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic.

One year later, I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19.

The U.S. government’s slow and inadequate response to the new coronavirusunderscores the need for organized, accountable leadership to prepare for and respond to pandemic threats. Continue reading.

Trump faces toughest crisis of presidency in coronavirus

President Trump is staring down the steepest crisis of his presidency and his handling of it could define his time in office.

The coronavirus outbreak presents a test unlike any other Trump has faced thus far. Past crises — mass shootings, white nationalist riots in Charlottesville and government shutdowns — faded out of the news cycle over time or were swallowed up by political machinations.

But the virus shows no signs of abating, and Trump and his administration are under constant scrutiny for their response.

Jared Kushner revealed as brains behind Donald Trump’s “half-baked” coronavirus response

“Haphazard and helter-skelter”: The president’s son-in-law inserted himself into the tumult this week

The president’s son-in-law and senior advisor was the focus of a hard-hitting Washington Post deep-dive titled, “Infighting, missteps and a son-in-law hungry for action: Inside the Trump administration’s troubled coronavirus response.”

“The economy was grinding to a halt. Stocks were in free fall. Schools were closing. Public events were being canceled. New cases of the novel coronavirus were popping up across the country,” the newspaper reported. “And then, on Wednesday, the day the World Health Organization designated the coronavirus a pandemic, Jared Kushner joined the tumult.”

“President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — who has zero expertise in infectious diseases and little experience marshaling the full bureaucracy behind a cause — saw the administration floundering and inserted himself at the helm, believing he could break the logjam of internal dysfunction,” The Post reported. Continue reading.

Pence tells White House staff to avoid physical contact

Axios logoVice President Mike Pence sent White House staff an email Saturday afternoon recommending “social distancing” and to “avoid physical contact” to keep themselves and their colleagues safe from the novel coronavirus.

Why it matters: This is the first staff-wide email Pence has sent across the complex during his time as vice president — and is the latest sign the White House is shifting its posture against the pandemic.

  • As recently as Thursday, Pence, who is leading the President Trump’s task force to combat COVID-19, told CNN he was still shaking hands with people at the White House.
  • On Friday before the nation’s TV cameras, Trump repeatedly shook hands with industry CEOs during a live press conference in the Rose Garden.
  • But on Saturday the president and his team began modeling different behavior — in line with public health official recommendations. Trump tweeted “SOCIAL DISTANCING!“, said he’d finally been tested for the coronavirus, suggesting that people should be cautious about shaking hands.
  • Also on Saturday, for the first time a White House physician scanned journalists’ foreheads with a thermometer before they could join the White House press briefing. Continue reading.

Statement from House & Senate leaders regarding legislative operations

House DFL logoSAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — House Speaker Melissa Hortman, House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, and Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent released the following statement regarding legislative operations in the wake of COVID-19:

“Over the next few weeks, the Minnesota Legislature will continue to work, but by alternative means. We expect to operate efficiently and safely to aid Minnesotans with COVID-19 preparedness and response, and to continue our work to address other pressing needs of the state. While it’s important that we remain in session to swiftly respond to the needs of Minnesotans at this time, we will fully comply with Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) guidelines including social distancing, limiting large gatherings, telework, and increased cleaning measures. 

“The Legislative bodies and committees will meet in floor and committee session on an on-call basis from March 16 through April 14. This means there will not be standing floor and committee meetings, but we will meet on the House and Senate floors and in committees with advance notice to members and to the public. All meetings will be held in spaces that allow six feet of distance between individuals. We will implement telework arrangements for legislative employees where it is possible to do so. We encourage Minnesotans to continue to reach out to their legislators by email, telephone and mail during this period while we are operating via alternate means. We intend to take up legislation on the House and Senate floors during this time period only by agreement of the House DFL, House GOP, Senate DFL and Senate GOP caucus leaders.

“We are working together to ensure the safety of our members, our staff, and the public at this time.”

Legislative leaders will hold a media availability on Monday, March 16 at 10:30 AM in Room 1300 of the Senate Office Building to discuss these changes and what to expect in the week ahead.

 

‘Disaster socialism’: Will coronavirus crisis finally change how Americans see the safety net?

Diana Hernandez has one foot in the Ivy League, where she’s an assistant professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and another in the grittier streets of the South Bronx, the mostly working-class area where she lives. Walking down a Bronx boulevard the other day, she witnessed scenes much different from the TV news version of the coronavirus crisis, where suburbanites stuff payloads of squeezably soft toilet paper and price-gouged Purell in the back of luxury SUVs.

Instead, Hernandez wrote that she witnessed Bronx shoppers at her local Dollar Tree stocking up on bleach, a tiny four-pack of toilet paper or a three-pack of Cup Noodles — stockpiles for families that lack cash for day-to-day emergencies, let alone the uncertainties of a global pandemic. She called it emblematic of how hard the coronavirus crisis is for people living on the margins — who can’t simply work from home when their job is cleaning hospital floors or frying fast-food burgers, who can only get around on crowded buses or subways, who can’t take paid sick days or don’t have child care when their kids’ schools shut down.

“The black and brown folks who work for these corporations have to show up on their line or at their cleaning facility, because they’re taking care of the things that can’t be taken care of remotely,” Hernandez told me by phone. I’d called her after reading her op-ed on how a public health crisis has laid bare what so many have tried to ignore for so long — the many ways that the cruel inequalities of modern U.S. capitalism weigh on working people. Continue reading.